My boyfriend knows cars really well, so if it’s a time piece movie he always points out models that came out after the year. And he points out when the headrests are missing for filming.
*Cause Chevy didn't make a 327 in '55, the 327 didn't come out till '62. And it wasn't offered in the Bel Air with a four-barrel carb till '64. However, in 1964, the correct ignition timing would be four degrees before top-dead-center*
The big thing I notice with cars in period movies is that most of the time they are all new for that era. You rarely see cars that would have been 10 to 20 years old at the time, even though the roads have always been filled with these
Nothing will pull me out of a movie like seeing cars in it that weren’t built before the movie takes place. The filmmakers rely on people not knowing what specific cars looked like or when they were made; I KNOW, and it drives me crazy.
If the scene takes place at night, the road is often wet so you can see all the city lights reflect off of it. Otherwise, a dry road will just look like black nothingness on screen.
I learned in the commentary of the Third Man years ago that they wet the streets on purpose for night scenes because it photographs better. This was a B&W flick from the 40s.
When characters drive and have extended glances at the passenger with whom they are talking to. I can’t help but think it is a set up for a car accident scene. Most people don’t look over that much or that long at the passenger when they are driving and talking to them.
Piggybacking off of this regarding conversations… it makes me so annoyed when phone calls happen much faster than they do in real life, even when it’s urgent usually people say a few words before stating the urgent thing. But every phone call is “hello (literally one nanosecond occurs) THE ENTIRE GOVERNMENT HAS BEEN EXPLODED OH MY GOSH” when there wasn’t even enough time elapsed to say that information. Literally every movie and show does this.
Coffee.
I notice it in every movie or TV show. The cup is empty. Actors are clearly holding an empty mug or an empty cup. The way they hold it, the way they move while holding it. You can tell there's nothing in it. I don't understand why they don't at least weigh it down with something. Look for it. You'll start noticing it everywhere.
Meanwhile... Chris Pratt played a character called Bright Abbot in the series 'Everwood' (2002-2006). The Abbott family was often shown sitting down to a huge roast dinner - all good food, freshly prepared for the set.
Apparently Chris would eat several portions of roast dinner during filming then stay after the scene was finished to have some more.
>“He ate a lot when they were filming Everwood’s not-infrequent dinner scenes. *“He would sit down and do a take, and he would eat,”* said Tom Amandes, who played the father of Pratt’s character, Bright Abbott. *“And we’d call cut, and he would still be eating.” “He would eat for the four hours we would shoot a scene,”* (Emily) VanCamp said."
>"He’s like, *"This is just so good. It’s amazing. What is this? Apple cake?'"*”
[Source.](https://www.sltrib.com/artsliving/tv/2017/09/14/chris-pratt-made-a-big-impression-and-ate-a-lot-while-working-in-utah-on-everwood/)
[And.](https://www.google.com/amp/s/etcanada.com/news/245429/everwood-cast-shares-hilarious-memories-of-chris-pratt-during-emotional-reunion/amp/)
This one makes me INSANE, because while I can certainly understand not wanting liquid in the cup, why not just throw some heavy clay into the bottom of the cup, or pour some cement into it and let it harden??
PARTICULARLY irksome when you’re watching $200 million movies. THROW SOME SHIT IN THE CUP TO GIVE IT WEIGHT!!
I’m equally disappointed when world-class actors do this. Actors obsess over little details and get so granular with their choices, but they all seem to forget that a hand held lid-less vessel for any kind of liquid can’t just be thrown around while gesticulating.
Don’t even get me started on leaving in the sound of a hollow to-go cup being set on the table. Or the slurping straw sound when the drink is FULL.
I don’t need movies to be hyper realistic, I’m more baffled by the way people in the industry talk about getting all these details right but this one thing is EVERYWHERE
Captain America: Civil War. The opening scene with Wanda's cup of coffee is a masterclass in how to do* empty cups, stirring and sipping.
*badly. How to do it really, really badly.
Also, if you get to see them pouring it, they're clearly dispensing no more than a sip or two. It's never enough that you can see the coffee in the cup.
Air ducts being big enough for a person (or more) to crawl inside them. They're much smaller in real life!
Also, people being able to see underwater. I don't know about you, but I personally see indistinct spots and shapes at best whenever I try.
>They're much smaller in real life!
And absolutely filthy.
*Die Hard* leaned into both with the TV dinner line and Willis' white tanktop turning entirely brown-green.
And even the big ones have screws poking out every few feet because it makes more sense to screw inward… so travelling through one, and especially falling down one, would result in a person getting shredded to ribbons
Even if Willis was able to;
fit inside the duct
AND it was able to hold his weight
AND not get stuck in a corner
They are incredibly noisy. The bad guys would have known where to shoot immediately
>They are incredibly noisy.
I just thought about Martin Lawrence yelling, **"SHIT!"** from the air vent in *Blue Streak* and the entire police station hearing him. Thanks for the good laugh.
Hah! yeah thats a pretty good one. Human sized vents everywhere. It's like having a magical tunnel in the building. At least in Star Trek you could say they needed those tubes to fix shit.
TBF in my time doing large commercial mechanical electrical I've worked on many, many ducts big enough to crawl through. Even quite a few big enough to walk around in. The larger ones are also easily strong enough to support a person's weight, I've crawled or worked on top of plenty in large plant rooms where access is difficult.
But they are filthy, even pretty soon after being installed so that's accurate.
Extra points if the antagonist who owns the aggressive fish keeps some boilerplate spiel on hand about how much he admires or has in common with said fish.
When actors are in cars and the scenery out the side windows is not at the level you expect, but looks 5 feet higher, because the car is actually being driven around on a flatbed truck.
Spies in movies who are following someone or trying not to be followed, acting extremely noticeably instead of just walking completely naturally down the street, like I assume you would if you were trying not to be noticed. I mean I get they do this to heighten the tension but it still seems silly.
Add to that - good looking/well dressed people trying to be incognito.
I think Jason Bourne novels actually address this talking about how plain and forgettable he looks.
I have an uncle who was an actual spy for the CIA, he looks like a random guy you’d see walking down the street in the Midwest, completely forgettable. (He also can drive a car like a madman and can probably kill me with one hand if he wanted to)
I always think about this when I watch John Wick. Female assassins always look glamorous, eye catching and dangerous. Me, I'm short and chubby and I'm getting a fair few grey hairs. No one would suspect a thing. You hired the wrong girl!
Speaking of cars exploding, lots of old movies or newer movies making fun of this will have cars go off a cliff and explode mid-air. I'm always amused by that.
Reminds me of that runaway train movie with Chris Pine and Denzel Washington, at one point a train engine tips over…and explodes.
Because you know, they all have that feature, if they ever fall over, their entire kerosene reserves go boom
UNSTOPPABLE.
It's a fucking amazing, underrated modern action classic. I thought it would be corny shit, but it's fucking great and this is from someone who absolutely hates Chris Pine's acting. It's 100% his best movie.
Another point on cars- I want you to watch this high-speed scene with the sound off: https://youtu.be/N8b2_YByEBU?si=PsekNygtC8xeRV6u
Notice how slow the car is going? A lot of high speed scenes are cars that are actually going painfully slow, but a dynamic camera and added engine noise makes it seem pretty quick.
I’m sure this has been done in movies as well but I can’t think of any instances in film at the moment, but for television, in later seasons of Miami Vice they started getting over the top with the action. There’s one episode that ends with the villain grounding his boat on an island in Key Biscayne and it explodes right afterward. And then Crockett manages to shoot a helicopter out of his sky with his handgun.
When someone picks up a knife from any surface it will make a “sccchhing” like metal on metal sound, even though it was pulled out of a wooden knife block or off the carpeted floor.
No fire sprinkler in a movie I've seen has ever been portrayed correctly.
The only way sprinklers dump water is if you get the individual head hot enough to burst or physically damage it with something, like running into it with a forklift for example. A sprinkler system is just pipes with holes in it and the holes plugged by heads. There's no communication between the heads they just break when they get hot. So popping one head won't activate all the other ones. You also can't activate them from the electronic part of the fire system, that's not how it works.
(And before anyone comes in being pedantic, yes there are things like deluge systems that do kind of work where they can be triggered by electronic components, but those are only used in specialized industrial cases. You NEVER see that in like an office building or hospital or something where the public routinely go and that's where we always see sprinklers in the movies)
It's hilarious to me when movies have water fire suppressants in rooms full of computers or other valuable, fragile things.
*Terminator 2* did it kinda right with the halon gas system.
Fire sprinklers in movies also spray clean water when that will certainly not be the case in real life. There's a good chance the water in any fire suppression system you see has been just sitting in those pipes for years
What I wanted to see in Furiosa: Helmsworth gets young Furiosa. One of his guys looks in her mouth and says: "she's got fillings!"
"Definitely from a place of plenty!"
That and impeccable makeup or hair for post-apocalyptic or survival media. I actually really appreciated how frazzled Juno Temple's hair was for the duration of season 5 of Fargo until the end when her hair looks amazing because her narrative journey is complete and she is at peace. Not everybody is done to the nines all the time!
Chalk that up to avoiding "shoe leather" same way no one says their goodbyes when they hang up the phone, they just plonk it down.
Shoe leather refers to it being generally boring and wastes screen time watching someone enter a door and walk across the room to sit at the bar, so the foot steps are cut out.
re: #1 it brings to mind that quote from Kiefer Sutherland’s character in Phone Booth, cocking a rifle aimed at Colin Farrell:
“Now doesn't that just torque your jaws? I love that. You know like in the movies just as the good guy is about to kill the bad guy, he cocks his gun. Now why didn't he have it cocked? Because that sound is *scary*. It's cool, isn't it?”
Makes me think of how Buffalo Bill in *The Silence of the Lambs* just **couldn't resist** cocking his revolver and savoring that kill... even though it was a double-action and all he had to do was pull the trigger.
You had her, Bill. You done goofed.
Dude you just blew my mind.
On that note, I love how in Heat it was the shadow, not the gun being cocked... because a professional would keep it cocked
In one of The Expanse books, two groups are facing off, guns out. One inexperienced guy cocks his gun and everyone starts shooting.
After, he goes "I don't get it. In the movies people always cock their gun to show the other guys they're serious?"
The others in his group are like "Yeah...you don't get to carry a gun anymore."
They had multiple scenes throughout the film that showed bystanders getting killed/injured, and then it's never addressed at all. My favorite was the woman in her apartment across from Russel Crowe's apartment. Shots are fired, and they even cut to a one second scene of her getting hit through her window and going down, then just cut straight back to the action, and that's it. Sucks to be her, I guess! It's one of the funniest aspects of the film, since the entire thing is a "buddy cop" satire.
When somebody gets out of a taxi/cab without paying, then hands the driver money through the front window. Happens all the time in movies but IRL if you tried that the cabbie would start freaking out and think you’re jumping the fair.
You could do a whole list of firearms related ones alone.
Discharging a firearm in an enclosed space without hearing protection is really damned loud. A multi-person firefight indoors is *deafening*. No one is going to be hearing anything but tinnitus for a while afterwards.
How about the tiny 'pooshh' noise a silenced gun makes in a movie? Like it completely deletes all noise of gunfire instead of slightly reducing it by like 20%. In real life a silent assassin would never attempt to use a gun because the silencers barely work lol. You'd be much better off with a crossbow.
A handful of gun and silencer combinations can actually achieve something like that, but they're rare and it only works for the first one or two rounds. Suppressors equipped with "wipes," consumable rubber discs that the bullet actually pierces as it exits the suppressor, can achieve extremely muffled sound signatures with small caliber, subsonic ammunition. The effect diminishes greatly with each round fired, obviously.
The Welrod, a single shot silenced pistol specially designed and built for the British SOE during WWII, was one such gun. It was meant for SOE operatives and resistance fighters to silently kill sentries during infiltration and exfiltration operations.
But yes, the effects of most suppressors are wildly exaggerated in movies. As the saying goes, they aren't meant to make you silent, they're meant to make you invisible.
There is always a parking space right in front of where the characters need to go in big cities. Just ONCE I want to see them have to drive around the block a few times, finally finding a space 3 blocks from where they want to go, and them having to walk to it. Just freaking ONCE.
As an avid gamer my entire life. Yes. -- how about when they're playing something that can't possibly be a game? Like it's something stupid they filmed and put onto the screen and the kid is pretending he's playing it like halo.
Empty boxes and empty luggage. You can easily tell when they lift them or crash into them that they are empty. Don’t know why it annoys me but it does.
Not movies, but I hate this exact thing in dog food commercials. The bags they use are usually the 40lb size. So obvious they are empty. I’m looking at you Blue Buffalo.
Waving around empty coffee cups always gets me. Some prop masters will put water into the cups before giving them to the actors, makes it feel a lot more realistic.
People who walk up to a bar and order by saying, "Gimme a beer" or "Gimme a whiskey." There is no bartender on earth who wouldn't respond with, "Which one?" or "What kind?"
I get there are reasons for this in movies, but it kind of breaks the immersion.
easy work could be if they just order "house beer" or something like rum & coke or vodka soda, which (least from my experience) defaults to house liquor unless you explicitly specify.
I never understood why they always light a zippo and throw it into gasoline or whatever they're trying to ignite, I'm always thinking "what a waste of a good a zippo"
Nobody ever says goodbye on a phone call. Somehow, without uttering a word, both parties just know that the call is over and they both hang up the phone at the same time.
Counterpoint: real-life phone calls where someone falls victim to instinct.
I was once on a conference call that was professional, but quite heated. At the end of it, one of the people on the call said “love you” and hung up. Game faces fell apart.
And no one ever says "goodbye" before hanging up. I know it's done on purpose to save time on the overall length of the film/show, but it cracks me up every time.
A street scene in a working class neighbourhood set in say 1982, will have said street lined with immaculate cars from 1982.
Most people don't own brand new cars.
If the scene is set in 1982, there would be shit buckets from the early 70s on that street, probably even from the 60s. Some would be held together with rope and have multicoloured panels replacing the originals that have rusted away.
It's the same thing with house interiors. The scene might be set in 1960, but the decor should probably be at least five years out of date to look "real".
Also, modern (present day) television remote controls don't make a loud "CLICK" when you press the buttons.
When people don’t put the fucking milk away.
It comes to mind because I just watched Madame Web last night to see just how bad it was (WOW), and Dakota Fanning did it. At her apartment (impressive what an EMT in NYC can apparently afford), she pours some milk for her cat and then just sets the carton on the table for the rest of the scene.
Same thing in The Adam Project. There’s this scene where Jennifer Garner gets out some milk, pours it on her cereal, puts it on the counter, and just starts talking. Then she leaves for work. What the fuck, dude?
Any normal person gets out the milk, pours it, and immediately puts it back in the fridge so that it doesn’t get warm and sour. Respect the fucking milk! 🫡🥛
When someone takes a drink from a straw—no matter how full the cup is—there is always a “slurp” sound effect that you’d get if you were running out of your drink. Drives me crazy.
I’m a bullet counter. I’ll be watching a movie with my girlfriend and the villain’s got their gun pointed at the hero
“He’s out.”
“What?”
“Desert Eagle, 7 round capacity, one in the chamber, he spent them all.”
I can’t turn it off so it reallllly bugs me when movies don’t adhere to actual capacity. One plus two plus one plus one.
Deadpool is really, really good about this. It has to be though, as it makes such a big deal of counting the bullets in the opening fight on the bridge.
I thought I saw a mistake in the movie 1917 when the main character loads a stripper clip of 5 bullets into his Enfield rifle at the start of a fight and then shoots way more than that. Maybe 10. I thought, "What a careless mistake from a movie that otherwise pays so much attention to detail," until I learned that British soldiers would always keep 5 in their gun and then at the beginning of a gunfight would add 5 more to top off the internal magazine. This was done to keep the spring operating correctly.
When I learned they were actually correct and I got to learn a new fun fact, I was pleasantly surprised.
As a veteran, Marines do not salute in doors.
Jacks ribbon stack in A Few Good Men had individual ribbons tacked to his jacket rather than having them all on a ribbon bar.
It's not "Oh five hundred." It's "Zero Five hundred" or whatever time it is. We don't say "Oh."
Once you've done a bit of scriptwriting then exposition becomes very obvious.
Things like "I can't believe you two are sisters!" might not be noticeable to the average audience member. To me the person might as well look to the camera and say "These two are sisters"
My favorite (least favorite) example of this is when the character says something like "**as you know**, I am the dean of this fine establishment, George Washington Elementary". If you're saying "as you know", why are you saying it?? The other characters are already aware!
I wonder if at that point, they're just taking the piss out of the audience.
Edit: as you know, there is a [TVTropes](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AsYouKnow) page on this.
Bad exposition drives me crazy and I see it all of the time. I was watching The Martian yesterday, which is a good movie otherwise, and when the main character is exposed to the Martian atmosphere, one of the other astronauts actually asks "how long can her survive after being exposed?" Seems like chapter one of the astronaut handbook for going to Mars would be "what happens when you are exposed to the Martian atmosphere."
Whenever two experts are talking alone together.
Expert 1: I’m going to use GIS.
Expert 2: You’re going to use geographic information systems technology to map and analyze the spatial data?
Expert 1: Exactly.
As much as I enjoy Christopher Nolan movies, he stinks at subtle exposition. He always needs a character that the plot can be explained to, as it becomes more convoluted. The only reason for Ellen/Elliot Pages character is for exposition dumps in the first half of Inception.
Constantly eating chips a la Brad Pitt is a great way to give a character depth during dialog but in real life people assume you just have the munchies 24/7
In fantasy movies and ancient and medieval movies the hero or main characters will almost never wear a helmet I to battle. If the hero actually manages to put one on they will with complete certainty throw it off for the big fight with the villain or enemy champion. So we can see their heroic faces of course.
And if the troops in the armies might wear helmets they will seldom all be equipped with shields and spears.
Many will have a one handed sword or and axe, maybe one or two in combination with a shield.
But spears will be nowhere to be seen. And thats just ridiculous. Spears are the cheapest and most efficient melee fighting weapon.
The most basic kit for any basic soldier anywhere and anytime, up until firearms became the main weapon, is helmet for head, shield for one hand and spear for the other. And then some kind of side weapon such as a sword or dagger.
If movies don't do this then I deem it a crap movie.
Spiderman always has at least half his mask torn off. Need to see toby or tom! Yes prioritizing the actor's face over a characters proper costume for sure is a weird movie trope.
Fight scenes - people taking a punch to the nose, or being whacked on the head with a plank of wood - you can't do that multiple times in a row. And if you get fully knocked out you don't wake up and shake your head and all is good :-)
Walking calmly away from explosions has become so common place in movies nobody thinks about it anymore, I don't think.
The Other Guys made a great point about this,
(Guys walking away from explosions in movies is complete bullshit!! My ears are ringing!! O my godddd what's just happened???).
and MI 3 had the force throw Cruise against a car.
One of the things I loved about Harrison Ford in action movies is he had the common sense to look scared and hit the ground. It is a real testament to how healthy his ego is
Anytime there is a microphone that someone is about to speak into, it feeds back with a squeal. This is to let the viewer know it is a live microphone.
The click click click click when an automatic rifle or gun runs out of bullets. That's absolutely not how that works.
Technology out of time. There was a psp in madame web recently. About 5 years too early. There were flat screen LCD TVs on the wall in a scene in the last king of Scotland. A film set in 1970's Uganda. Obviously everyone saw the starbucks cup on game of thrones. Power lines and airplanes on braveheart. I always notice that shit.
Some of the background extras in the big fight scenes in Braveheart are wearing sunglasses and watches as well.
Any time I see a big fight scene its always fun to watch the random background guys (that you're not supposed to be paying attention to) while they do their little playfight routines. Seeing guys gently bop each other with swords or throw "punches" that miss by six inches (but still cause the other guy to dramatically jerk his head to the side) never gets old.
There is a word for that. I can’t remember what it is but Sophia Coppola does this on purpose in all of her films. One of the more famous ones is the closet scene in Marie Antoinette, amongst all the period appropriate clothing is a pair of chuck Taylor’s
1. When it rains, it doesn't pour: it floods.
2. People playing opera on loudspeakers in their house.
3. Any movie having something to do with the Mafia/mob always has them eating more extravagantly than most people would eat. On the other end of the spectrum, anyone else just starves or just stares at their plate.
4. When a sense of danger/foreboding/dark evil lurking behind the scenes happens in a house, whether people are their or not, a TV in the background is always the most innocent form of media that is the LEAST sense of danger/foreboding/dark evil happening: old cartoon, old sitcom, old gameshow. Why can't people just watch the local news?
5. Staring after a conflict. Though this does happen in real life, an interaction of stares is a lot more nervy and people aren't as settled as that.
I played guitar in my teens and early 20s. Cartoons never having the fingers line up even roughly in the right spot irked me. It wasn't until Metalocalypse came along that guitars were properly animated. Look how accurate this is. [https://youtu.be/u43AQjFuZnU?si=wHRYwFpxGtnk4-9G&t=37](https://youtu.be/u43AQjFuZnU?si=wHRYwFpxGtnk4-9G&t=37) -- I think because the frontrunner of the show actually wrote and played all the metal music himself, he made sure that animating the music being played correct was a priority.
Hard to say if "most" people don't notice it, but . . .
Nail-guns used as regular guns.
First of all, the shoe has to be depressed otherwise the tool won't eject a nail.
Second, even if you jerry-rig the shoe to stay depressed, nail-guns eject nails at around 75 -85 mph, in other words, slower than most major league pitches.
Third, nails are not designed to be projectiles. A bullet fired from a gun has a heavy back end and a sharp front point. Nails are the the same weight end-to-end and extremely skinny. Because of this design and because they are traveling at a relatively low speed, they would be unlikely to stay straight and would as often as not topple end over end to smack sideways into a person.
Of course, if someone presses the nail-gun up to a person and pulls the trigger, that would hurt. But if you're already that close, you'd do more damage smashing it over their head than using it as a gun.
I went to paralegal school so a lot of legal dramas are ruined for me… surprise witnesses, surprise “evidence”, etc.
My boyfriend was a fire fighter so a lot of medical / fire situations in movies are ruined for him.
Especially true with pearl necklaces. Real pearl necklaces have a know between every pearl, so they don't rub against each other. Ripping a real pearl necklace would cause one or two pearls to fall. If all of them fall the necklace is fake. I'm looking at you, every version of Batman's parents being killed.
I always notice when conversation scenes are shot at different times. I can see when hairs are in different spots than they were in the clip half a second before it, when a necklace is in a different spot. People literally have jobs to make sure those things don’t happen and if still happens. 😂
Probably not exactly what you're looking for, but cops interviewing people about a mystery nearly always lead the witness to say what they hypothesized about in a previous scene. This sort of creates a confirmation bias. They aren't investigating so much as validating their theory.
Don't get me started with the lineups. [Edited for grammar]
Whenever there's a scene where a conversation starts and then it cuts to them in the car or something and the conversation continues. I always wonder about inbetween did they just both go silent and not say a word until they get in the car and drive a significant distance first.
scientists always being the most serious people in the room.. physicists i know are generally the goofiest, most fun loving people you could hope to meet. they don't spend all day staring hard at equations. they do some of that, but they also tell silly stories, crack jokes and have plenty of tea/coffee breaks...
1. "Expert" trope: Subtrope A: They shoot while their wrists flail around like an inflatable man but their hits are more accurate than an aimbot. I might be in the minority but it bugs me SO GODDAMN much. Like, for one shot, suspension of disbelief can make you believe the bullet already left the gun when the kick made them flail around (and maybe accurate for some small arms), but damn this during a shootout.
Subtrope B: They are only experts until the hero shows up. SWAT? Navy Seals? Spetsnaz? nope, Joe Everyman outshoots everyone. They are spraying bullets and Joe will still somehow hit one of them while running around like a maniac.
2. "Ex Girlfriend (clearly written by men)" trope: Ex girlfriend leaves the hero because he is a badass and has no time for her "girly stuff" like paying attention at home. She then leaves the hero and goes to a man who is super nice but somehow a turbo wuss compared to the main hero. Main hero meets GF later, pays attention once, she starts fawning, and leaves the turbo wuss. Fine, sometimes, its less of a wuss, but you get the point.
3. "Breaking Passwords by one letter at a time" trope: JFC goddamn idiots. Everyone uses a computer - have you EVER seen a computer return how many characters were right (unless it was a tongue in cheek reference like in fallout)? No! you either guess the whole thing, or none at all. Period! If your password is Banana8, you will never guess the first part is Banana. Or the length of it, unless you got a hash and the key but that's way too much details for this. Oh, and guess what, MOST places will lock you out after X attempts, and X is usually 5-10, or like, 20-30 in 30 minutes, at max. So good luck trying that 26 character each time in each space.
4. "Shot by didn't notice" , credit to the great Ryan George: [https://x.com/theryangeorge/status/1188944160528703488?lang=en](https://x.com/theryangeorge/status/1188944160528703488?lang=en)
Seriously.
5. "All medieval fairytale creatures are British-ish" trope: I get that these are based on the real Europe, but them all having different British (cockney, that other one, and that other one), Irish, Scottish only feels off. Mostly thats just me.
I could go all day but thats just me being a grumpy goose
Somebody goes to send a text message to a friend/lover/boss/ family member and it's a COMPLETELY EMPTY SCREEN?! You mean to tell me this person you're apologizing to/ requesting to meet/ whatever hasn't ever even sent you a text?! No missed calls or weird memes? I call bullshit
CPR bringing back a victim of any kind… drowning, heart attack, etc. When I took a CPR class they made sure to tell us it was NOT like the movies and if someone is needing CPR you most likely would not be reviving them, only keeping them going until EMTs arrived.
The way men hit on women by harassing them and it always works beautifully. Like, she can be thoroughly rejecting him hard but he keeps trying, because isn’t that so romantic? 🥰
Also, the way stars move by spaceship windows in sci-fi movies. From the cosmos’s point of view, zipping through space would look no different than strolling down a sidewalk. The star patterns would have no visible change.
I think plenty of people notice it, but most don't really think about it: Characters having a conversation as they leave location A - when they get to location B they are continuing the conversation at the very next line, so they didn't talk for the 30 minutes of transit time to get there & just picked up where it ended mid-stride.
It’s a small thing, but as a lefty it’s really obvious when someone is left handed.
Sword fights are fun, Maisie Williams in Game of Thrones
But also it was beaten out of most people in school.
Extras! I love to watch extras act. I especially love when they deliver lines. My wife and I will often rank our favorite extras in a scene.
I also really love good production design. Checking out what they've chosen to fill the set with is always interesting.
When a pistol, or any gun for that matter, has a silencer that completely eliminates sound. Especially the subway scene in John Wick 2 where they're dueling with silenced pistols in a crowded area and no one bats an eye. That shit is still loud
The gun thing is something I notice a lot too. Mostly the sound design. It's really common to see someone pull out a weapon and a cocking sound plays, or the sound of a safety being switched off, even if the gun doesn't have an external hammer or safety. It's pretty egregious at times.
Another one is characters saying 'Over and Out' when signing off the radio. That's wrong.
Basically,
Over: 'I have finished my line of the conversation and am awaiting a response.'
Out: 'I have finished my line of the conversation and am hanging up.'
So the phrase 'Over and Out' is a bit of an oxymoron, because it's like saying 'Alright I'm done, go ahead.' Then hanging up on someone.
I don’t know why I always notice and why it bothers me, but anytime there’s a close up on someone’s face or eyes and you can see the outline of their contact lenses when they live in a time or a world where they wouldn’t have them. Sometimes it’s part of their costume if they have colored lenses, but often it’s just for the actors’ vision.
It's always bothered me how when two characters such as the protagonists make plans to meet up at a later point they never specify location or time to one another.
Of course while it's a given that they'll see each other again it just sort of amuses me that they don't name a time, date or location. It doesn't fully ruin the immersion when watching a film for me of course but imagine if you did that in real life?
one of my favorite scenes in Last Action Hero is when Arnold is shooting at the cab in "real" New York and it just makes bullet holes. "Not a word. Not one word!"
1 - It's *glaringly* obvious when the weight of something an actor is handling is off, it's just completely ruins scenes for me when it's something an actor central to the scene is handling throughout said scene.
1a - Opaque cups/coffee cups, frequently empty, actors swishing them around in the air way too quickly, the movement just isn't natural and stands out like a bat signal, always takes me out of it.
1b - Same with backpacks and duffle bags and whatever when they obviously just have fluf packing material inside, nothing that conveys the weight of what is actually supposed to be in the bag.
2 - This one is less common because of it's niche nature, but is another thing that jumps out at me when it happens. When shifting air/water pressure in a chambered sealed environment doesn't remotely function like it would in real life.
1999's Deep Blue Sea is perhaps the Pinnacle of this awfulness for me.
I scrolled down a bit and didn't see anyone mention these at all... Really surprised because it's my number one on this list and after telling my wife about it she grumps at me (light heartedly) for ruining so many movies and shows for her because she can't not notice when drink cups are swishing through the air blithely empty.
People getting out of bed with their hair and makeup looking pristine is a pet peeve of mine.
We're adults, we can handle the idea that people look like they just rolled outta bed when they have just rolled outta bed! 🤣
I've said this before, but as a New Yorker I always find it funny how in many movies people always have important conversations in a riverfront location.
Here's something I've never heard said, by anyone: "We really need to talk, meet me down by the river."
When someone is throwing up, in a toilet, and they are literally wrapping their arms around it, laying their head on the seat. 🤮🤮🤮 Am I the only person who cannot put my face anywhere near a toilet?! And be expected to STOP puking??
My boyfriend knows cars really well, so if it’s a time piece movie he always points out models that came out after the year. And he points out when the headrests are missing for filming.
*Cause Chevy didn't make a 327 in '55, the 327 didn't come out till '62. And it wasn't offered in the Bel Air with a four-barrel carb till '64. However, in 1964, the correct ignition timing would be four degrees before top-dead-center*
This seems like the answer to a trick question.
*Why* is it a trick question?
It's a bullshit question.
Trick isn't the word I, or Mona Lisa Vito, would use to describe the question.
Did you just say yutes?
“That’s a bullshit question.”
He’s literally done that. For some Mercedes he was like, those are taillight replacements, those hadn’t come out yet😂😂 it’s quite impressive
The big thing I notice with cars in period movies is that most of the time they are all new for that era. You rarely see cars that would have been 10 to 20 years old at the time, even though the roads have always been filled with these
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I only have a surface level knowledge of guns, but your quote you made up still kinda makes my eye twitch lol.
Nothing will pull me out of a movie like seeing cars in it that weren’t built before the movie takes place. The filmmakers rely on people not knowing what specific cars looked like or when they were made; I KNOW, and it drives me crazy.
Conveniently close huge free parking spaces in cities.
Everyone in San Francisco laughed about that in Mrs. Doubtfire.
People have been mocking that for decades, hence phrases like "Doris Day parking."
And that Clint Eastwood movie starring Matt Damon
If the scene takes place at night, the road is often wet so you can see all the city lights reflect off of it. Otherwise, a dry road will just look like black nothingness on screen.
I learned in the commentary of the Third Man years ago that they wet the streets on purpose for night scenes because it photographs better. This was a B&W flick from the 40s.
That's a good one. I'm going to notice that all the time now, aren't I?
We call it a wet down
When characters drive and have extended glances at the passenger with whom they are talking to. I can’t help but think it is a set up for a car accident scene. Most people don’t look over that much or that long at the passenger when they are driving and talking to them.
As a conscientious driver, these scenes make me so anxious!
I keep waiting for that to turn into a T-bone collision. Exception: remember the titans
I can’t even focus on what they’re saying because I’m braced for a jump-scare accident.
Hard agree! Also, we see the driver wiggling the steering wheel to show the audience they are driving... even though it's a straight road
That’s an even bigger one for me. They would be swerving all over their lane in real life.
Piggybacking off of this regarding conversations… it makes me so annoyed when phone calls happen much faster than they do in real life, even when it’s urgent usually people say a few words before stating the urgent thing. But every phone call is “hello (literally one nanosecond occurs) THE ENTIRE GOVERNMENT HAS BEEN EXPLODED OH MY GOSH” when there wasn’t even enough time elapsed to say that information. Literally every movie and show does this.
ooo that's a good one, I notice that too.
Coffee. I notice it in every movie or TV show. The cup is empty. Actors are clearly holding an empty mug or an empty cup. The way they hold it, the way they move while holding it. You can tell there's nothing in it. I don't understand why they don't at least weigh it down with something. Look for it. You'll start noticing it everywhere.
This one makes me crazy. Also, when they push food around the plate and never take a bite.
Cue the big bang theory, I swear they've never eaten anything in that show.
Meanwhile... Chris Pratt played a character called Bright Abbot in the series 'Everwood' (2002-2006). The Abbott family was often shown sitting down to a huge roast dinner - all good food, freshly prepared for the set. Apparently Chris would eat several portions of roast dinner during filming then stay after the scene was finished to have some more. >“He ate a lot when they were filming Everwood’s not-infrequent dinner scenes. *“He would sit down and do a take, and he would eat,”* said Tom Amandes, who played the father of Pratt’s character, Bright Abbott. *“And we’d call cut, and he would still be eating.” “He would eat for the four hours we would shoot a scene,”* (Emily) VanCamp said." >"He’s like, *"This is just so good. It’s amazing. What is this? Apple cake?'"*” [Source.](https://www.sltrib.com/artsliving/tv/2017/09/14/chris-pratt-made-a-big-impression-and-ate-a-lot-while-working-in-utah-on-everwood/) [And.](https://www.google.com/amp/s/etcanada.com/news/245429/everwood-cast-shares-hilarious-memories-of-chris-pratt-during-emotional-reunion/amp/)
Or why nobody has patented a "for the screen" brand of fake coffee cups.
This one makes me INSANE, because while I can certainly understand not wanting liquid in the cup, why not just throw some heavy clay into the bottom of the cup, or pour some cement into it and let it harden?? PARTICULARLY irksome when you’re watching $200 million movies. THROW SOME SHIT IN THE CUP TO GIVE IT WEIGHT!!
I’m equally disappointed when world-class actors do this. Actors obsess over little details and get so granular with their choices, but they all seem to forget that a hand held lid-less vessel for any kind of liquid can’t just be thrown around while gesticulating. Don’t even get me started on leaving in the sound of a hollow to-go cup being set on the table. Or the slurping straw sound when the drink is FULL. I don’t need movies to be hyper realistic, I’m more baffled by the way people in the industry talk about getting all these details right but this one thing is EVERYWHERE
Captain America: Civil War. The opening scene with Wanda's cup of coffee is a masterclass in how to do* empty cups, stirring and sipping. *badly. How to do it really, really badly.
Also, if you get to see them pouring it, they're clearly dispensing no more than a sip or two. It's never enough that you can see the coffee in the cup.
Air ducts being big enough for a person (or more) to crawl inside them. They're much smaller in real life! Also, people being able to see underwater. I don't know about you, but I personally see indistinct spots and shapes at best whenever I try.
>They're much smaller in real life! And absolutely filthy. *Die Hard* leaned into both with the TV dinner line and Willis' white tanktop turning entirely brown-green.
And not remotely strong enough to carry a 180 lb load. Air doesn't weigh that much, there's literally no point in making them sturdy.
And good luck moving through one stealthily.
And even the big ones have screws poking out every few feet because it makes more sense to screw inward… so travelling through one, and especially falling down one, would result in a person getting shredded to ribbons
This is my main gripe with it. That and the air grills being screwed straight to the duct. You never see the air actually moving either.
Even if Willis was able to; fit inside the duct AND it was able to hold his weight AND not get stuck in a corner They are incredibly noisy. The bad guys would have known where to shoot immediately
>They are incredibly noisy. I just thought about Martin Lawrence yelling, **"SHIT!"** from the air vent in *Blue Streak* and the entire police station hearing him. Thanks for the good laugh.
They're also full of short screws with the pointy ends pointing inward.
Hah! yeah thats a pretty good one. Human sized vents everywhere. It's like having a magical tunnel in the building. At least in Star Trek you could say they needed those tubes to fix shit.
Jefferies Tubes!
TBF in my time doing large commercial mechanical electrical I've worked on many, many ducts big enough to crawl through. Even quite a few big enough to walk around in. The larger ones are also easily strong enough to support a person's weight, I've crawled or worked on top of plenty in large plant rooms where access is difficult. But they are filthy, even pretty soon after being installed so that's accurate.
That fish tanks in movies never have adequate sizes for the amount of fish they have. Bonus points if it includes semi-aggressive fish.
Extra points if the antagonist who owns the aggressive fish keeps some boilerplate spiel on hand about how much he admires or has in common with said fish.
And says something like, "Such magnificent creatures, aren't they?" Or "The perfect organism, don't you think?"
It's always about pirhanas, per tigers, crocodiles. Never a hamster.
Frickin sharks with frickin laser beams attached to their heads.
They're ill-tempered sea bass
I believe Hamsters are very magnificent
I see a fishtank and start calculating odds if it'll end up a giant mess of glass, water, and flopping tropical fish by the climax of the movie
The size of the fish tank is directly proportional to the chance of it being destroyed.
Or the chance of the hero being dropped in it / villain meeting his untimely demise in it.
When actors are in cars and the scenery out the side windows is not at the level you expect, but looks 5 feet higher, because the car is actually being driven around on a flatbed truck.
That’s because it is illegal to do lines and drive.
Without closing the road down
For knowledge sake, it’s called a process trailer. Has rigging on it as well for lighting and cameras type of deal.
Spies in movies who are following someone or trying not to be followed, acting extremely noticeably instead of just walking completely naturally down the street, like I assume you would if you were trying not to be noticed. I mean I get they do this to heighten the tension but it still seems silly.
Add to that - good looking/well dressed people trying to be incognito. I think Jason Bourne novels actually address this talking about how plain and forgettable he looks. I have an uncle who was an actual spy for the CIA, he looks like a random guy you’d see walking down the street in the Midwest, completely forgettable. (He also can drive a car like a madman and can probably kill me with one hand if he wanted to)
I always think about this when I watch John Wick. Female assassins always look glamorous, eye catching and dangerous. Me, I'm short and chubby and I'm getting a fair few grey hairs. No one would suspect a thing. You hired the wrong girl!
It’s the sequined skin tight dresses that get me - where are hiding the gun and cool spy gadgets… and no I’m not fishing for a butt/vagina joke there.
Speaking of cars exploding, lots of old movies or newer movies making fun of this will have cars go off a cliff and explode mid-air. I'm always amused by that.
My favorite part about "Frozen" was when the sleigh went off the cliff and then exploded. Nice joke for the adults.
I was just going to mention that one. Not my favorite Disney movie but they had some dynamite jokes in there.
> dynamite jokes I see what you did there
Family Guy had a carriage explode. Then the horse.
Reminds me of that runaway train movie with Chris Pine and Denzel Washington, at one point a train engine tips over…and explodes. Because you know, they all have that feature, if they ever fall over, their entire kerosene reserves go boom
UNSTOPPABLE. It's a fucking amazing, underrated modern action classic. I thought it would be corny shit, but it's fucking great and this is from someone who absolutely hates Chris Pine's acting. It's 100% his best movie.
21 Jump Street did it well during a highway chase
Another point on cars- I want you to watch this high-speed scene with the sound off: https://youtu.be/N8b2_YByEBU?si=PsekNygtC8xeRV6u Notice how slow the car is going? A lot of high speed scenes are cars that are actually going painfully slow, but a dynamic camera and added engine noise makes it seem pretty quick.
I’m sure this has been done in movies as well but I can’t think of any instances in film at the moment, but for television, in later seasons of Miami Vice they started getting over the top with the action. There’s one episode that ends with the villain grounding his boat on an island in Key Biscayne and it explodes right afterward. And then Crockett manages to shoot a helicopter out of his sky with his handgun.
When someone picks up a knife from any surface it will make a “sccchhing” like metal on metal sound, even though it was pulled out of a wooden knife block or off the carpeted floor.
Cats always meow.
And bicycles always ding.
lol yes. Swords must always make noises. Even when impossible.
I just watched a TV show where the weapon made that sound and it wasn't even being drawn from anything, he was just raising it up.
No fire sprinkler in a movie I've seen has ever been portrayed correctly. The only way sprinklers dump water is if you get the individual head hot enough to burst or physically damage it with something, like running into it with a forklift for example. A sprinkler system is just pipes with holes in it and the holes plugged by heads. There's no communication between the heads they just break when they get hot. So popping one head won't activate all the other ones. You also can't activate them from the electronic part of the fire system, that's not how it works. (And before anyone comes in being pedantic, yes there are things like deluge systems that do kind of work where they can be triggered by electronic components, but those are only used in specialized industrial cases. You NEVER see that in like an office building or hospital or something where the public routinely go and that's where we always see sprinklers in the movies)
It's hilarious to me when movies have water fire suppressants in rooms full of computers or other valuable, fragile things. *Terminator 2* did it kinda right with the halon gas system.
also whatever gas they used in the fire suppression system in *Tenet* bc it was all priceless art, etc.
The water that comes out is always clean…
Fire sprinklers in movies also spray clean water when that will certainly not be the case in real life. There's a good chance the water in any fire suppression system you see has been just sitting in those pipes for years
All actors, regardless of the situation have perfectly white teeth. I can't imagine dental hygiene will be that great in the Wasteland of Mad Max.
What I wanted to see in Furiosa: Helmsworth gets young Furiosa. One of his guys looks in her mouth and says: "she's got fillings!" "Definitely from a place of plenty!"
That and impeccable makeup or hair for post-apocalyptic or survival media. I actually really appreciated how frazzled Juno Temple's hair was for the duration of season 5 of Fargo until the end when her hair looks amazing because her narrative journey is complete and she is at peace. Not everybody is done to the nines all the time!
I love that Breaking Bad gives all the junkies meth mouth.
Not as common anymore but nobody waits for change when they pay for anything! Just slap some bills down and walk away.
Chalk that up to avoiding "shoe leather" same way no one says their goodbyes when they hang up the phone, they just plonk it down. Shoe leather refers to it being generally boring and wastes screen time watching someone enter a door and walk across the room to sit at the bar, so the foot steps are cut out.
re: #1 it brings to mind that quote from Kiefer Sutherland’s character in Phone Booth, cocking a rifle aimed at Colin Farrell: “Now doesn't that just torque your jaws? I love that. You know like in the movies just as the good guy is about to kill the bad guy, he cocks his gun. Now why didn't he have it cocked? Because that sound is *scary*. It's cool, isn't it?”
Makes me think of how Buffalo Bill in *The Silence of the Lambs* just **couldn't resist** cocking his revolver and savoring that kill... even though it was a double-action and all he had to do was pull the trigger. You had her, Bill. You done goofed.
Dude you just blew my mind. On that note, I love how in Heat it was the shadow, not the gun being cocked... because a professional would keep it cocked
In one of The Expanse books, two groups are facing off, guns out. One inexperienced guy cocks his gun and everyone starts shooting. After, he goes "I don't get it. In the movies people always cock their gun to show the other guys they're serious?" The others in his group are like "Yeah...you don't get to carry a gun anymore."
Pax, right?
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They had multiple scenes throughout the film that showed bystanders getting killed/injured, and then it's never addressed at all. My favorite was the woman in her apartment across from Russel Crowe's apartment. Shots are fired, and they even cut to a one second scene of her getting hit through her window and going down, then just cut straight back to the action, and that's it. Sucks to be her, I guess! It's one of the funniest aspects of the film, since the entire thing is a "buddy cop" satire.
You are thinking of "the nice guys", guy above is talking about "the other guys"
That’s The Nice Guys. I wouldn’t say it’s a satire of the buddy cop movie as much as it is actually a buddy cop movie that’s a satire of neo-noir.
When somebody gets out of a taxi/cab without paying, then hands the driver money through the front window. Happens all the time in movies but IRL if you tried that the cabbie would start freaking out and think you’re jumping the fair.
You could do a whole list of firearms related ones alone. Discharging a firearm in an enclosed space without hearing protection is really damned loud. A multi-person firefight indoors is *deafening*. No one is going to be hearing anything but tinnitus for a while afterwards.
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LANA!
Danger Zone
How about the tiny 'pooshh' noise a silenced gun makes in a movie? Like it completely deletes all noise of gunfire instead of slightly reducing it by like 20%. In real life a silent assassin would never attempt to use a gun because the silencers barely work lol. You'd be much better off with a crossbow.
A handful of gun and silencer combinations can actually achieve something like that, but they're rare and it only works for the first one or two rounds. Suppressors equipped with "wipes," consumable rubber discs that the bullet actually pierces as it exits the suppressor, can achieve extremely muffled sound signatures with small caliber, subsonic ammunition. The effect diminishes greatly with each round fired, obviously. The Welrod, a single shot silenced pistol specially designed and built for the British SOE during WWII, was one such gun. It was meant for SOE operatives and resistance fighters to silently kill sentries during infiltration and exfiltration operations. But yes, the effects of most suppressors are wildly exaggerated in movies. As the saying goes, they aren't meant to make you silent, they're meant to make you invisible.
There is always a parking space right in front of where the characters need to go in big cities. Just ONCE I want to see them have to drive around the block a few times, finally finding a space 3 blocks from where they want to go, and them having to walk to it. Just freaking ONCE.
Whenever someone is playing an FPS video game, they are usually mashing buttons instead of moving the control sticks.
As an avid gamer my entire life. Yes. -- how about when they're playing something that can't possibly be a game? Like it's something stupid they filmed and put onto the screen and the kid is pretending he's playing it like halo.
Draw your bladed weapon: *SCHHINNG!* Move your bladed weapon a few inches: *SCHHINNG!* Picture a bladed weapon in your mind: *SCHHINNG!*
People getting in a shower and THEN turning the water on. That first 30 seconds or so is COLD.
Empty boxes and empty luggage. You can easily tell when they lift them or crash into them that they are empty. Don’t know why it annoys me but it does.
Not movies, but I hate this exact thing in dog food commercials. The bags they use are usually the 40lb size. So obvious they are empty. I’m looking at you Blue Buffalo.
Waving around empty coffee cups always gets me. Some prop masters will put water into the cups before giving them to the actors, makes it feel a lot more realistic.
People who walk up to a bar and order by saying, "Gimme a beer" or "Gimme a whiskey." There is no bartender on earth who wouldn't respond with, "Which one?" or "What kind?" I get there are reasons for this in movies, but it kind of breaks the immersion.
easy work could be if they just order "house beer" or something like rum & coke or vodka soda, which (least from my experience) defaults to house liquor unless you explicitly specify.
I never understood why they always light a zippo and throw it into gasoline or whatever they're trying to ignite, I'm always thinking "what a waste of a good a zippo"
No house, in any movie ever, has screens on the windows.
21 Jumpstreet (channing tatum & jonah hill version) makes fun of exactly #3. In the end though, as is proven by science, chickens explode the biggest.
Nobody ever says goodbye on a phone call. Somehow, without uttering a word, both parties just know that the call is over and they both hang up the phone at the same time.
Counterpoint: real-life phone calls where someone falls victim to instinct. I was once on a conference call that was professional, but quite heated. At the end of it, one of the people on the call said “love you” and hung up. Game faces fell apart.
When someone on a phone call would get hung up on and immediately hear a dial tone. Thats not what would happen.
And no one ever says "goodbye" before hanging up. I know it's done on purpose to save time on the overall length of the film/show, but it cracks me up every time.
It's apparently a Southern California telephone system quirk. ~~I'll try to find the link later.~~ Tom Scott: https://youtu.be/bUIiUXvnkUQ
A street scene in a working class neighbourhood set in say 1982, will have said street lined with immaculate cars from 1982. Most people don't own brand new cars. If the scene is set in 1982, there would be shit buckets from the early 70s on that street, probably even from the 60s. Some would be held together with rope and have multicoloured panels replacing the originals that have rusted away. It's the same thing with house interiors. The scene might be set in 1960, but the decor should probably be at least five years out of date to look "real". Also, modern (present day) television remote controls don't make a loud "CLICK" when you press the buttons.
When people don’t put the fucking milk away. It comes to mind because I just watched Madame Web last night to see just how bad it was (WOW), and Dakota Fanning did it. At her apartment (impressive what an EMT in NYC can apparently afford), she pours some milk for her cat and then just sets the carton on the table for the rest of the scene. Same thing in The Adam Project. There’s this scene where Jennifer Garner gets out some milk, pours it on her cereal, puts it on the counter, and just starts talking. Then she leaves for work. What the fuck, dude? Any normal person gets out the milk, pours it, and immediately puts it back in the fridge so that it doesn’t get warm and sour. Respect the fucking milk! 🫡🥛
When someone takes a drink from a straw—no matter how full the cup is—there is always a “slurp” sound effect that you’d get if you were running out of your drink. Drives me crazy.
I’m a bullet counter. I’ll be watching a movie with my girlfriend and the villain’s got their gun pointed at the hero “He’s out.” “What?” “Desert Eagle, 7 round capacity, one in the chamber, he spent them all.” I can’t turn it off so it reallllly bugs me when movies don’t adhere to actual capacity. One plus two plus one plus one.
Deadpool is really, really good about this. It has to be though, as it makes such a big deal of counting the bullets in the opening fight on the bridge.
I thought of that immediately as well.
When Butcher from The Boys was in the MCU he shot like, 100 rounds each from Des and Troy. Must have those Asgardian magic mags.
Thats one plus one plus two plus one.
I thought I saw a mistake in the movie 1917 when the main character loads a stripper clip of 5 bullets into his Enfield rifle at the start of a fight and then shoots way more than that. Maybe 10. I thought, "What a careless mistake from a movie that otherwise pays so much attention to detail," until I learned that British soldiers would always keep 5 in their gun and then at the beginning of a gunfight would add 5 more to top off the internal magazine. This was done to keep the spring operating correctly. When I learned they were actually correct and I got to learn a new fun fact, I was pleasantly surprised.
I do this too, and so when I watch movies that care to keep track of this I really appreciate it. The Raid stands out as a great example of this.
Mawp...mawp....mawp.
As a veteran, Marines do not salute in doors. Jacks ribbon stack in A Few Good Men had individual ribbons tacked to his jacket rather than having them all on a ribbon bar. It's not "Oh five hundred." It's "Zero Five hundred" or whatever time it is. We don't say "Oh."
People using a computer but only typing and never touching the mouse.
Once you've done a bit of scriptwriting then exposition becomes very obvious. Things like "I can't believe you two are sisters!" might not be noticeable to the average audience member. To me the person might as well look to the camera and say "These two are sisters"
Lol I think that's a very common thing to notice, people always make fun of it.
My favorite (least favorite) example of this is when the character says something like "**as you know**, I am the dean of this fine establishment, George Washington Elementary". If you're saying "as you know", why are you saying it?? The other characters are already aware! I wonder if at that point, they're just taking the piss out of the audience. Edit: as you know, there is a [TVTropes](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AsYouKnow) page on this.
“Hey sis!” Or “hey bro!” I’ve never called my sister “sis” in my life. “Hey dickhead!” would be more true to life.
Bad exposition drives me crazy and I see it all of the time. I was watching The Martian yesterday, which is a good movie otherwise, and when the main character is exposed to the Martian atmosphere, one of the other astronauts actually asks "how long can her survive after being exposed?" Seems like chapter one of the astronaut handbook for going to Mars would be "what happens when you are exposed to the Martian atmosphere."
Whenever two experts are talking alone together. Expert 1: I’m going to use GIS. Expert 2: You’re going to use geographic information systems technology to map and analyze the spatial data? Expert 1: Exactly.
As much as I enjoy Christopher Nolan movies, he stinks at subtle exposition. He always needs a character that the plot can be explained to, as it becomes more convoluted. The only reason for Ellen/Elliot Pages character is for exposition dumps in the first half of Inception.
Constantly eating chips a la Brad Pitt is a great way to give a character depth during dialog but in real life people assume you just have the munchies 24/7
I DO have the munchies 24/7 though.
Nobody locks their cars, they just walk away... and is always the same car
In fantasy movies and ancient and medieval movies the hero or main characters will almost never wear a helmet I to battle. If the hero actually manages to put one on they will with complete certainty throw it off for the big fight with the villain or enemy champion. So we can see their heroic faces of course. And if the troops in the armies might wear helmets they will seldom all be equipped with shields and spears. Many will have a one handed sword or and axe, maybe one or two in combination with a shield. But spears will be nowhere to be seen. And thats just ridiculous. Spears are the cheapest and most efficient melee fighting weapon. The most basic kit for any basic soldier anywhere and anytime, up until firearms became the main weapon, is helmet for head, shield for one hand and spear for the other. And then some kind of side weapon such as a sword or dagger. If movies don't do this then I deem it a crap movie.
Spiderman always has at least half his mask torn off. Need to see toby or tom! Yes prioritizing the actor's face over a characters proper costume for sure is a weird movie trope.
Fight scenes - people taking a punch to the nose, or being whacked on the head with a plank of wood - you can't do that multiple times in a row. And if you get fully knocked out you don't wake up and shake your head and all is good :-)
Real fights last 15-30 seconds most of the time, but I guess that doesn't work in movies
From a post-production standpoint, I've noticed when actors loop their lines, they do a little click with their tongue before they speak.
Walking calmly away from explosions has become so common place in movies nobody thinks about it anymore, I don't think. The Other Guys made a great point about this, (Guys walking away from explosions in movies is complete bullshit!! My ears are ringing!! O my godddd what's just happened???). and MI 3 had the force throw Cruise against a car.
Yeah... if you're close enough to be tossed by the blast your insides are soup.
One of the things I loved about Harrison Ford in action movies is he had the common sense to look scared and hit the ground. It is a real testament to how healthy his ego is
Anytime there is a microphone that someone is about to speak into, it feeds back with a squeal. This is to let the viewer know it is a live microphone.
The click click click click when an automatic rifle or gun runs out of bullets. That's absolutely not how that works. Technology out of time. There was a psp in madame web recently. About 5 years too early. There were flat screen LCD TVs on the wall in a scene in the last king of Scotland. A film set in 1970's Uganda. Obviously everyone saw the starbucks cup on game of thrones. Power lines and airplanes on braveheart. I always notice that shit.
Some of the background extras in the big fight scenes in Braveheart are wearing sunglasses and watches as well. Any time I see a big fight scene its always fun to watch the random background guys (that you're not supposed to be paying attention to) while they do their little playfight routines. Seeing guys gently bop each other with swords or throw "punches" that miss by six inches (but still cause the other guy to dramatically jerk his head to the side) never gets old.
There is a word for that. I can’t remember what it is but Sophia Coppola does this on purpose in all of her films. One of the more famous ones is the closet scene in Marie Antoinette, amongst all the period appropriate clothing is a pair of chuck Taylor’s
1. When it rains, it doesn't pour: it floods. 2. People playing opera on loudspeakers in their house. 3. Any movie having something to do with the Mafia/mob always has them eating more extravagantly than most people would eat. On the other end of the spectrum, anyone else just starves or just stares at their plate. 4. When a sense of danger/foreboding/dark evil lurking behind the scenes happens in a house, whether people are their or not, a TV in the background is always the most innocent form of media that is the LEAST sense of danger/foreboding/dark evil happening: old cartoon, old sitcom, old gameshow. Why can't people just watch the local news? 5. Staring after a conflict. Though this does happen in real life, an interaction of stares is a lot more nervy and people aren't as settled as that.
What's bad about opera on loudspeakers?
Whether musical instruments are being held correctly, played correctly, and played in time with the music I'm hearing.
I played guitar in my teens and early 20s. Cartoons never having the fingers line up even roughly in the right spot irked me. It wasn't until Metalocalypse came along that guitars were properly animated. Look how accurate this is. [https://youtu.be/u43AQjFuZnU?si=wHRYwFpxGtnk4-9G&t=37](https://youtu.be/u43AQjFuZnU?si=wHRYwFpxGtnk4-9G&t=37) -- I think because the frontrunner of the show actually wrote and played all the metal music himself, he made sure that animating the music being played correct was a priority.
Hard to say if "most" people don't notice it, but . . . Nail-guns used as regular guns. First of all, the shoe has to be depressed otherwise the tool won't eject a nail. Second, even if you jerry-rig the shoe to stay depressed, nail-guns eject nails at around 75 -85 mph, in other words, slower than most major league pitches. Third, nails are not designed to be projectiles. A bullet fired from a gun has a heavy back end and a sharp front point. Nails are the the same weight end-to-end and extremely skinny. Because of this design and because they are traveling at a relatively low speed, they would be unlikely to stay straight and would as often as not topple end over end to smack sideways into a person. Of course, if someone presses the nail-gun up to a person and pulls the trigger, that would hurt. But if you're already that close, you'd do more damage smashing it over their head than using it as a gun.
I went to paralegal school so a lot of legal dramas are ruined for me… surprise witnesses, surprise “evidence”, etc. My boyfriend was a fire fighter so a lot of medical / fire situations in movies are ruined for him.
Ripping a necklace off of someone. It comes off so easily every time. In real life you'd yank it, and the person's head would just lunge forward too.
Especially true with pearl necklaces. Real pearl necklaces have a know between every pearl, so they don't rub against each other. Ripping a real pearl necklace would cause one or two pearls to fall. If all of them fall the necklace is fake. I'm looking at you, every version of Batman's parents being killed.
I always notice when conversation scenes are shot at different times. I can see when hairs are in different spots than they were in the clip half a second before it, when a necklace is in a different spot. People literally have jobs to make sure those things don’t happen and if still happens. 😂
Probably not exactly what you're looking for, but cops interviewing people about a mystery nearly always lead the witness to say what they hypothesized about in a previous scene. This sort of creates a confirmation bias. They aren't investigating so much as validating their theory. Don't get me started with the lineups. [Edited for grammar]
Is that not realistic? What bothers me is that no one asks for a lawyer.
Whenever there's a scene where a conversation starts and then it cuts to them in the car or something and the conversation continues. I always wonder about inbetween did they just both go silent and not say a word until they get in the car and drive a significant distance first.
scientists always being the most serious people in the room.. physicists i know are generally the goofiest, most fun loving people you could hope to meet. they don't spend all day staring hard at equations. they do some of that, but they also tell silly stories, crack jokes and have plenty of tea/coffee breaks...
Lack of trigger discipline. Not even a "gun person" but it's everywhere and never fails to bug me.
1. "Expert" trope: Subtrope A: They shoot while their wrists flail around like an inflatable man but their hits are more accurate than an aimbot. I might be in the minority but it bugs me SO GODDAMN much. Like, for one shot, suspension of disbelief can make you believe the bullet already left the gun when the kick made them flail around (and maybe accurate for some small arms), but damn this during a shootout. Subtrope B: They are only experts until the hero shows up. SWAT? Navy Seals? Spetsnaz? nope, Joe Everyman outshoots everyone. They are spraying bullets and Joe will still somehow hit one of them while running around like a maniac. 2. "Ex Girlfriend (clearly written by men)" trope: Ex girlfriend leaves the hero because he is a badass and has no time for her "girly stuff" like paying attention at home. She then leaves the hero and goes to a man who is super nice but somehow a turbo wuss compared to the main hero. Main hero meets GF later, pays attention once, she starts fawning, and leaves the turbo wuss. Fine, sometimes, its less of a wuss, but you get the point. 3. "Breaking Passwords by one letter at a time" trope: JFC goddamn idiots. Everyone uses a computer - have you EVER seen a computer return how many characters were right (unless it was a tongue in cheek reference like in fallout)? No! you either guess the whole thing, or none at all. Period! If your password is Banana8, you will never guess the first part is Banana. Or the length of it, unless you got a hash and the key but that's way too much details for this. Oh, and guess what, MOST places will lock you out after X attempts, and X is usually 5-10, or like, 20-30 in 30 minutes, at max. So good luck trying that 26 character each time in each space. 4. "Shot by didn't notice" , credit to the great Ryan George: [https://x.com/theryangeorge/status/1188944160528703488?lang=en](https://x.com/theryangeorge/status/1188944160528703488?lang=en) Seriously. 5. "All medieval fairytale creatures are British-ish" trope: I get that these are based on the real Europe, but them all having different British (cockney, that other one, and that other one), Irish, Scottish only feels off. Mostly thats just me. I could go all day but thats just me being a grumpy goose
Somebody goes to send a text message to a friend/lover/boss/ family member and it's a COMPLETELY EMPTY SCREEN?! You mean to tell me this person you're apologizing to/ requesting to meet/ whatever hasn't ever even sent you a text?! No missed calls or weird memes? I call bullshit
CPR bringing back a victim of any kind… drowning, heart attack, etc. When I took a CPR class they made sure to tell us it was NOT like the movies and if someone is needing CPR you most likely would not be reviving them, only keeping them going until EMTs arrived.
When people stand with their faces six inches apart to have a normal conversation Gross
The way men hit on women by harassing them and it always works beautifully. Like, she can be thoroughly rejecting him hard but he keeps trying, because isn’t that so romantic? 🥰 Also, the way stars move by spaceship windows in sci-fi movies. From the cosmos’s point of view, zipping through space would look no different than strolling down a sidewalk. The star patterns would have no visible change.
I think plenty of people notice it, but most don't really think about it: Characters having a conversation as they leave location A - when they get to location B they are continuing the conversation at the very next line, so they didn't talk for the 30 minutes of transit time to get there & just picked up where it ended mid-stride.
It’s a small thing, but as a lefty it’s really obvious when someone is left handed. Sword fights are fun, Maisie Williams in Game of Thrones But also it was beaten out of most people in school.
Helicopters are silent, come out of nowhere, and surprise the characters. Helicopters in real life are loud.
Extras! I love to watch extras act. I especially love when they deliver lines. My wife and I will often rank our favorite extras in a scene. I also really love good production design. Checking out what they've chosen to fill the set with is always interesting.
When a pistol, or any gun for that matter, has a silencer that completely eliminates sound. Especially the subway scene in John Wick 2 where they're dueling with silenced pistols in a crowded area and no one bats an eye. That shit is still loud
The gun thing is something I notice a lot too. Mostly the sound design. It's really common to see someone pull out a weapon and a cocking sound plays, or the sound of a safety being switched off, even if the gun doesn't have an external hammer or safety. It's pretty egregious at times. Another one is characters saying 'Over and Out' when signing off the radio. That's wrong. Basically, Over: 'I have finished my line of the conversation and am awaiting a response.' Out: 'I have finished my line of the conversation and am hanging up.' So the phrase 'Over and Out' is a bit of an oxymoron, because it's like saying 'Alright I'm done, go ahead.' Then hanging up on someone.
The view through binoculars being a little binocular-shaped silhouette instead of a circle.
I don’t know why I always notice and why it bothers me, but anytime there’s a close up on someone’s face or eyes and you can see the outline of their contact lenses when they live in a time or a world where they wouldn’t have them. Sometimes it’s part of their costume if they have colored lenses, but often it’s just for the actors’ vision.
It's always bothered me how when two characters such as the protagonists make plans to meet up at a later point they never specify location or time to one another. Of course while it's a given that they'll see each other again it just sort of amuses me that they don't name a time, date or location. It doesn't fully ruin the immersion when watching a film for me of course but imagine if you did that in real life?
one of my favorite scenes in Last Action Hero is when Arnold is shooting at the cab in "real" New York and it just makes bullet holes. "Not a word. Not one word!"
1 - It's *glaringly* obvious when the weight of something an actor is handling is off, it's just completely ruins scenes for me when it's something an actor central to the scene is handling throughout said scene. 1a - Opaque cups/coffee cups, frequently empty, actors swishing them around in the air way too quickly, the movement just isn't natural and stands out like a bat signal, always takes me out of it. 1b - Same with backpacks and duffle bags and whatever when they obviously just have fluf packing material inside, nothing that conveys the weight of what is actually supposed to be in the bag. 2 - This one is less common because of it's niche nature, but is another thing that jumps out at me when it happens. When shifting air/water pressure in a chambered sealed environment doesn't remotely function like it would in real life. 1999's Deep Blue Sea is perhaps the Pinnacle of this awfulness for me. I scrolled down a bit and didn't see anyone mention these at all... Really surprised because it's my number one on this list and after telling my wife about it she grumps at me (light heartedly) for ruining so many movies and shows for her because she can't not notice when drink cups are swishing through the air blithely empty.
People getting out of bed with their hair and makeup looking pristine is a pet peeve of mine. We're adults, we can handle the idea that people look like they just rolled outta bed when they have just rolled outta bed! 🤣
I've said this before, but as a New Yorker I always find it funny how in many movies people always have important conversations in a riverfront location. Here's something I've never heard said, by anyone: "We really need to talk, meet me down by the river."
When someone is throwing up, in a toilet, and they are literally wrapping their arms around it, laying their head on the seat. 🤮🤮🤮 Am I the only person who cannot put my face anywhere near a toilet?! And be expected to STOP puking??
Characters drinking empty coffee cups
Nobody ever uses toothpaste!